September 16, 2007

From Andrew Sullivan. That looks like racism -- really old-fashioned racism. If you think you've found a serious economic study that has some connection to present day policy, add some substance to the post and justify bringing up this disturbing subject. This is not material for a silly post put up for laughs and what seems to be a triumphant reference to an earlier assertion. What's going on here?

ADDED: And I'm not asking for an explanation of the humor in the video. I'm asking how Sullivan could think the news of a study that appears to support a racist stereotype should be met with a blog post like that featuring a comic video. The tone seems all wrong to me.

86 comments:

Not that I would ever want to defend Sullivan, but the clip he featured shows an example of the UK 'chav" culture, i.e. underclass wigger culture that emulates American hip-hop culture, including a love of "bling".

The point he would seem to be making is that some poor white people love bling as much as the blacks and hispanics cited in the study.

What's going on here? The same could be asked of you, I think. Are you offended that researchers for a well-known public research organization have studied the buying habits of Americans and discovered that minorities devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that they are relatively constant over time, and that they are economically large. If so, why? Are we all to pretend that there are no differences?

Why do you believe that this study has no connection to present day policy? The researchers obviously believe it does. Have you read the paper, or like the Chemerinsky affair, assumed facts not in evidence to support personal preconception?

As to the video, take a moment to acquaint youself with British "chav" culture. (On edit, I see Jeff has made that link already.)

Andrew Sullivan was the editor of The New Republic who devoted a major cover story to The Bell Curve, the racist work of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. It's been about 15 years, but I am pretty sure the conservative Republican Sullivan came out in defense of the books conclusion that blacks are genetically inferior to whites.

Sullivan is like every other human being: He doesn't agree with the Republican Party line 100%. But he is a conservative Republican who voted for Bush twice and has voted Republican in virtually every election since he arrived in America. It may not make us happy, or comfortable, but unfortunately we don't get to decide for other people what political party they affiliate with, or what their political philosophy is.

But it's a fact that we cannot escape: Sullivan is a Republican who votes for Republicans and calls himself a Republican, and Sullivan subscribes to the conservative Republican philosophy of government.

Maybe you'd feel better if you read some of his stuff about scraping social security, for example.

The reason that certain types want to ex communicate Sullivan from the Republican Party to which he belongs and has always belonged is to punish him for his lack of total fealty to Bush, and because he dared to disagree with the official party line on hating gay people.

I understand hating people, including gay people, is a core Republican value, but you can't kick Sullivan out of the party simply because he doesn't hate himself the way the rest of his party does.

verso: "Sullivan is like every other human being: He doesn't agree with the Republican Party line 100%. But he is a conservative Republican who voted for Bush twice and has voted Republican in virtually every election since he arrived in America."

For the record, Sullivan is not a Republican and has never voted for a Republican because he is not a U.S. citizen (he is ineligible because he is HIV+) and he supported John Kerry in 2004.

I have to second IR - I don't understand what you find offensive here. Different ethnic groups place different values on things. I believe the point of the study (I just read a synopsis, not the whole thing) is that this is not in the best economic interest of some of the ethnic groups involved. Interesting, but hardly controversial or offensive. Was it the video clip?

1) The Bell Curve is not racist, it is scientific fact. In private scientists will tell you that the data and conclusions of the Bell Curve are entirely accurate. However to say so publically is social suicide.

I don't think its racist to note that low status groups spend more on conspicuous luxury items than high status groups. The explanation/implication is not that certain races are inferior, but that people with lower social status (whether correlated with race or not) tend to compensate by investing in superficial displays of status.

Unrelatedly, I clicked through the hattip link to George Borjas and then randomly decided to look at his academic CV, which brags about several "Who's Who" lists that include him. It seems like a really weird thing to put on any resume, let alone an academic one.

Sullivan: "Using nationally representative data on consumption, we show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites."

"nationally representative data on consumption?"

"Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods?"

I understand the British humor in the clip, I just don't think it is very appropriate to point to a study that appears to confirm very old and offensive racial stereotypes and to say almost nothing but put up some jokey video clip. I really don't care about the British subgroup represented here or what black stereotypes they like to imitate. He's put up a post that seems gleeful about what has long been an offensive stereotype. I really don't get it -- the post. I'm not saying I don't get the clip if I were to encounter it in some other context!

Yes, I am sure hating gays is a core Republican value. You will soon be joining DTL at the Bush concentration camp for gays. Pathetic.

Hey pal, if you can't handle the fact that the Republicans are the Official Party of Homophobia, that's your problem.

Oh, and by the way, "The Bell Curve" is not only racist to the core, but it's an utter fraud with cooked statistics written by a disgingenuous dickhead whose only theme is that there's nothing we can do to help poor people so we should stop trying.

Man, sometimes the nudge-nudge wink-wink bigotry around here is wondrous to behold.

"The Bell Curve, the racist work of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. It's been about 15 years, but I am pretty sure the conservative Republican Sullivan came out in defense of the books conclusion that blacks are genetically inferior to whites."

Apparently you have not read The Bell Curve. It makes a lot of interesting points, but certainly does not claim that blacks are genetically (or in any other way) inferior to whites.

Sullivan is like every other human being: He doesn't agree with the Republican Party line 100%.

Ever since Bush came out in support of the gay marriage amendment he's supported it pretty close to 0%. If you want to argue that he used to be a Republican, fine -- no question about that. But these days he the label that best fits him is "moderate Democrat".

As for his being a conservative, well... he's never really fit that label. He's a Sullivanite before he's anything else. He has a reputation for being a conservative because he usually works for left-wing magazines, and to them he IS a conservative.

Anyway, there's nothing apparently "racist" about this study. If it confirms a stereotype, what of it? Some stereotypes have a lot of truth to them.

Silly posts are what they are: silly. I don't think you can really draw a line where only silly subjects can be the subject of silly posts.

If you're looking for surprisingly acceptable crypto-racism, I'd go with the glee at Instapundit (and elsewhere) in puns on Norman Hsu's name. Get it? That ol' Chinaman has a funny name! Haw haw, let's make fun of it!

I'm with Joseph. How can an objective evaluation of data be racist? There can't be real social science (sociology, psychology, political science, etc) without objective analysis of data without pre-judging the outcomes and putting some topics off limits.

as for the results of the analysis? It fits every study I have ever seen. Some of the effects are driven by original jim crow housing laws. Blacks had trouble buy houses at the same prices and places whites could. For any given income cohort, blacks tended to have less home ownership, lower equity, and spend relatively more on cars as a result. THis impacts negatively on wealth formation and inheritance. Knowing this set of facts is important to understanding some of the root causes of enduring poverty among blacks. This behavior continues in the absence of those laws today. ignoring facts in favor of beliefs that all groups have the same precise behaviors leads you down a path that assigns the causes of the impacts to imaginary current racism.

FWIW, Kerwin Charles, one of the authors of this study perpetuating "very old and offensive racial stereotypes" is himself black.

Personally, I absolutely don't get the Brit humor (an Irish thing?) but also don't get why this study is racist, rather than racialist.

Just off-hand, aren't colleges emphasizing racial diversity in their recruiting because of cultural differences across races? And mightn't one hope that it sort of follows that there are in fact cultural differences (or is all this diversity recruiting a sham?)? And did we expect that every difference would appear to be value-neutral to every observer?

Or did we expect that every observable difference would reflect well on blacks and Hispanics as appraised through white eyes?

I have not tracked down the study but I bristle at bit at the notion of "comparable whites". Just how did they find whites with the same history of racism and oppression as blacks in America?

look at steve simels. He can't actually refute what anyone says (that spending money on "bling" is wasteful and that minorities do it more than whites) so instead he analyzes the tone of our conversation with his special racism detector, and decides to bust us.

In other words, he doesn't ever have to engage in a substantive discussion: he just needs to show up and tell us all that we're a bunch of racists, because he said so, and we're supposed to go home and hang our heads in shame. Fat chance.

This is another clear attempt by Althouse to court controversy. All that Sullivan did was to quote and provide a link to the article, followed by a satirical video. What, exactly, are you taking issue with? The "old-fashioned racism?" If so, nobody disagrees with you.

Or, are you disagreeing with the findings of the study? If that is the case, have you any evidence of any black academics, researchers, politicians, etc denouncing the study? I don't know enough about statistics to find problems with the study's methodology or whatever, but it nobody's taken offense to it yet, then what's the problem with pointing out differences in consumption habits?

Wade said... Ann just used the word "Shout-Out" a couple of posts ago, which is a clear sign that she is an authority on African-American culture.

If you had read the linked article or were more perceptive about the fact that the title of the post that included "shout-out" was in quotes, you would have seen that Ann used as the title, the lead comment from the linked article.

"Apparently, in academia as it is now constituted, the failure to praise blacks and hispanics without reservation marks one as a racist."For the rhetorically impaired, this is a criticism of academia, not of blacks and Hispanics. It is also hyperbole.

"...if you lurk here long enough you realize that whole r'aison d'etre of the site..."

You mean this, nudge-nudge wink-wink, trainwreck of a blog? The whole r'aison d'etre of this trainwreck of a blog, right? Nudge-nudge wink-wink.

Althouse is right to find Sullivan disappointing if not outright offensive. Unless Sullivan condones the racialism inherent in the study, the link should have been followed by condemnation before any comedy -- for the sake of good manners, if nothing more.

I only read the abstract. Perhaps someone who reads the study would be so kind as to come back here and tell us how the study defines the following:

WhitesBlacksHispanicsvisible goods

Breaking down population groups into arbitrary "races," ipso facto, is racialist - just as SMGalbraith points out upthread. "Racialist" is a variant of "racist."

Steve "Dried Kumquat Head" Simels and LuckyOldSon are both anti-gay bigots. As a gay person, I'm allowed to decide what is offensive to me and what isn't (since we're playing the identity victim card here) and I pronounce you both unspeakable, disgusting bigots. You should both be ashamed of yourselves.

And don't answer me back, because you haven't lived my life, the life of an oppressed minority. You're both straight white male oppressors. I denounce you!

Steve "Dried Kumquat Head" Simels and LuckyOldSon are both anti-gay bigots. As a gay person, I'm allowed to decide what is offensive to me and what isn't (since we're playing the identity victim card here) and I pronounce you both unspeakable, disgusting bigots.

"I have found a certain type calls himself a Liberal...Now I always thought I was a Liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a Right-Wing Conservative Extremist, when I listened to everybody's point of view that I ever met, and then decided how I should feel. But this so-called new Liberal group, Jesus, they never listen to your point of view..." John Wayne 1968

Althouse - He's put up a post that seems gleeful about what has long been an offensive stereotype.

There are lots of things about an ethnicity or race that may be offensive, but true. And in real life, economic decisions are made in consequences to those facts. And so too with real life societal behavior.

When those facts are condemned as "stereotypes" - in a sense it is a plea to deny truth and reality in favor of a "No differences in any race or ethnicity are allowed by my ideology. Ever!"

If you are in Japan, and are white or black, chances are their condoms are too small to be usable and if you buy them anyways, determined to not heed stereotypes, you're out of luck.

And if you are a jewelry merchant, you best not specialize in "Bling" sales to the Nantucket summering crowd...but look for where black athletes and hispanic drug dealers shop. If you ignore facts to avoid stereotypes, you are screwed.

Similarly when society imposes "discrimination" penalties on groups simply for the uneven success different races or ethnicities have at different things to "deny the Jewish entreprenuer myth over Slovaks ability", the "S Korea drycleaner stereotype" - then wise social policy - to avoid stereotypes - is to have policies that "level things".

No bling sales in ghettos if they aren't sold in equal amounts in white shopping malls. Quotas on Jews in business to the Slovaks "discriminated against" can achieve "equality" of results. No more small business loans to Korean immigrants for dry cleaning stores...more need to go into "bling sales" and forestry jobs.

You all go ahead and feed the trolls. I've spent the last hour watching some very sexy vids of Dr. Who. That Sullivan video linked to another of the unfunny comic with David Tennant which lead to another. You know how it goes with YouTube. So I'm happy.

SMGalbraith - Racism is a serious charge. Those who engage in it are immoral, unethical, and if done in the public sector, committing crimes.

If we wish to eradicate as much bigotry as we can, we need to use the charge of prejudice seriously and with maturity. Otherwise, the charge loses its power.

Sounds like you embrace a totalitarian fascist approach, rather than accept Americans are free to hold whatever beliefs they want without interference of the Thought Police.

As long as "racism" "sexism" etc. do not amount to direct job discrimination or result in threats of harm or actual harm to others.

With most Asians and majorities of black, white, Muslim people harboring certain racist or sexist views - you can't call them immoral, unethical - as they do not deviate from majoritarian norms. Nor even criminal - as most litigation from harmful racist acts is in the civil arena.

we need to use the charge of prejudice seriously and with maturity

What "charge"? People are free to have their prejudices as long as they do not trammle the rights of others in an unreasonable manner. Prejudices can be very useful behaviors if they are based on true facts. Prejudices serve to enhance safety of individuals, allow them to assess risks of interactions that "prejudice-blind" people willfully ignore.

Just as importantly, charges of prejudice, racism, genderism, Islamophobia, gay hatred, classism, etc. are used by Lefties to try and shut down rational debate on important subjects. Like why blacks exceed their population percentages in prison population. Why woman should or should not serve in combat, or unlike men "serve only if they choose to." Why Asians feel it is OK to despise classes of people that do not show proper respect. Why employers should be able to honestly state they will not tolerate people who "have different multiculti values" about showing up to work or completing assignments on time.

As I noted earlier, there's an important distinction to be made between racialism versus racism.

Commenting on or noticing different racial behavior is not racism. Viewing one race as innately inferior (or superior) to another is racism.

SMG

The whole point of nudge-nudge wink-wink racism is to allow racists to say disgusting things that they know would get them shunned if they actually came out and said them.

There's a lot of people around here who are guilty of it; the giveaway is always the glee with which an asshole like ricpic says something like "Apparently, in academia as it is now constituted, the failure to praise blacks and hispanics without reservation marks one as a racist" as he did up thread.

On the OJ thread upstairs, he got a little careless and actually blurted out an (attemptedly veiled)out and out racial slur.

But, the video has nothing to do with chavs. It's British schoolkids, one of whom tried to act hip talking about Beyonce and her bling bling but got the term wrong and called it bing bing. Then the other two laugh at her for not knowing the American slang while she gets all pissy. The only connection between the article and the clip is the word bling. The clip doesn't make fun of certain stereotypes nor does it seem to indulge in them. And those kids aren't chavs. Not a label in sight = not chavs.

Michael Bloomberg is worth $5.5 Billion. That means that if he earned 3% interest (and he probably earned more) he gave away his interest income. When he retires, he's expected to sell his company and get somewhere around another $7 to $9 billion.

These stereotypes -- about black people wearing clothes not appropriate to their station in life and so forth -- go back at least to the post-Civil War Era.

Ann, with all due respect I think you've totally missed the point.

This isn't about "dressing above your station". If a poor black guy wanted to look like a member of my "station" he'd wear jeans and a t-shirt from Target, or maybe some khakis and a shirt from the Gap.

A guy who buys a gold chain and $300 dollar shoes is not trying to dress "above his station". He's trying to look richer than his peers, TO his peers. He's looking for social status within his own community, not within society at large. How many black men buy expensive clothes, cars, and jewelry to impress white people? Like we're going to care?

Should I go out and buy this book ? Is that your only answer to my question?

Your post made it sound like this sterotype was omnipresent- are you now ducking my original question? I would like a few examples (even anecdotal) of why you said this sterotype is so accepted and by whom it is accepted.